


dive

by poor_sickies



Series: tumblr prompt fills [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Broken Bones, Gen, Injury, KEITH IS RECKLESS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 15:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poor_sickies/pseuds/poor_sickies
Summary: Keith gets a little overconfident in an obstacle course, The universe conspires to teach him a lesson.





	dive

“What do you think you’re doing?! Do you want to  _die_??!”

“Relax, Lance,” Keith says, “that’s what the safety net down there is for.”

“I’m not sure,” Lance warns, “it’s still a big fall. At least twenty feet…”

Keith shrugs and lets himself fall.

Lance isn’t looking down, but he does hear something ripping, followed by a loud crack and a crash, while Keith screams.

“Keith!!” He yells. “Are you okay?”

Lance climbs down the rope as fast as he can, and runs towards Keith, who is on the ground, hunched over as he clutches his left knee.

“Keith! What happened?”

“My boot-” Keith pants, a couple of tears streaming down his face, “it got stuck…on the net.” He swallows, trying to stretch his leg in front of him. “I think it might be twisted.”

Lance kneels on the floor and takes a look at Keith’s knee. The rotula is…definitely not where it should be.

“I’m pretty sure it’s broken.” He says, before glancing upwards, at the boot, stuck on the net.

“If you-” Keith growls, before letting out a pained groan, “if you even dare to say ” _I told you so_ “, Lance- I swear to god.” Lance is about to say something but Keith interrupts him. “No- look- I made this obstacle course a million times. I jumped off this rope a million times. I-” Keith lets out a whimper, hands clutching his hurt knee once again.

“Keith, my man,” Lance says, as he helps him up, “hate to say this but…I told you so.”

* * *

“What are you doing? Are you trying to make your injury worse?” Lance exclaims, as Keith gets up in his own, immediately crying out as he puts weight in his leg. “Just let me help.”

It’s Lance who helps him back to the castle, one arm around Keith’s waist as Keith supports himself with an arm flung around Lance’s neck.

It’s slow and takes then much longer than usual to get inside. Lance has already called the others through the comms, and Shiro and Coran are already in the infirmary when Keith and Lance get there.

“Keith!” Shiro gasps, running to his side, “what happened!?“

Shiro and Lance help Keith to one of the beds, lifting his leg carefully. Keith pants, body hung forward, his face still twisted up in pain.

“He fell on the obstacle course,” Lance explains, “went through the net, but his boot got stuck.”

Shiro frowns.

“Through the net…? How did he go  _through_ the net…?”

“I jumped,” Keith mumbles, eyes glued to the white mattress.

“You… _what_? Why-”

Keith looks up at Shiro, his face a weird mix of frustration and exhaustion. 

“I jump all the time! I just don’t get why the net didn’t hold today, I was just-”

“Why did you even do that?!! Are you insane?!” Shiro explodes, and Keith flinches, arms against his chest.

“Shiro, I was just-

"You have no excuse!” Shiro interrupts, pointing his finger at Keith, accusingly, “you knew the cryopods were down, how couldn’t you be responsible enough to keep yourself safe?! It’s a  _safety_ net, for fuck’s sake, it’s not there for you to just jump and play free falling! What if we needed to form Voltron?!”

Shiro continues his rant for a while, and Keith doesn’t think he has ever heard such an angry lecture, especially not from Shiro. He keeps looking down, trying to ignore how bad his knee hurts.

“I’m really disappointed in you, Keith,” Shiro says finally, voice low and softer, “I thought you’d be more responsible.”

“I’m sorry.”

Coran and Lance are by his side, exchanging glances,not really knowing what to do. Shiro is right, of course, but Keith is tired and in pain, Was it really the best time to be angry? Coran steps in, placing a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“Alright, I think we should see the extent of the damage,” he says, picking some kind of machine from a drawer beside the bed. “We don’t have operational cryopods, but we have medical supplies.”

Shiro sighs, two fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose. It’s late, and he’s tired. And Keith is hurt. And he has been reckless again. Shiro is exhausted.

“I’ll go check out the net, before someone else gets hurt in it.”

Keith knew it was an excuse. The net could be checked out the next morning, he highly doubted anyone else would go on the obstacle course this late. He doesn’t try to stop Shiro though.

Coran runs the scanner through his leg, and plugs the machine into a  screen.

It’s not pretty.

“The knee is completely out of place,” Coran says, “and the bones below…it’s a spiral fracture.”

“What do we do?” Lance asks, glancing at his teammate.

Keith looks away from the screen quickly, and tries to control his ragged breathing.

“Keith? Keith, what’s going on?”

Keith swallows and steadies himself with both hands on the mattress.

“I’m gonna throw up,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut.

Coran grabs a plastic container nearby and hands it to him. After a few moments, Keith throws up inside.

Lance rubs his back with one hand, and holds his hair back with the other. When Keith finally lifts up his head, he’s sweating a lot more, and looks even paler than normal.

“You think you’re done?” Lance asks. Keith nods slowly.

“I’m going to give you a sedative so I can reset the knee,” Coran says, after throwing out the plastic container, and takes a small syringe out of one of the cupboards.

Keith nods, but looks away when Coran sticks the needle in his knee. 

The pain dies down after a couple of minutes, and Coran manages to put the knee in place. It makes a sickening sound, but Keith lays back, closes his eyes, and tries not to think about it.

Lance is still there, and Coran asks him for a few supplies. Keith doesn’t pay much attention. When he opens his eyes again, his leg is encased in something similar to a cast, from thigh to toes. It’s white, but seems to be made in a smoother material than on Earth.

It’s just as heavy though.

When Keith makes a move to stand up, he nearly falls on his face, the added weight on his leg pulling him forward. It’s Lance who catches him on time and holds him steady, with one hand on his chest and the other on his back.

“Hey, slow down,” he says softly, “let Coran bring you the crutches.”

Keith doesn’t say anything, and holds himself up with both hands on the mattress. Lance removes his when he knows Keith is steady.

The crutches are manageable enough, after the first few steps when Keith thought he was going to fall every other moment, but Keith’s pace is still slow. Lance follows him, watching closely as they both make their way to Keith’s room. It’s late, and right now, all that Keith wants is to get under the covers and sleep and forget everything.

It’s not the first time Shiro lectures him about staying safe and being careful. Keith remembers his motorcycle crash in his second year at the Garrison. He remembers the pneumonia he could have avoided, a year later. And Shiro had been mad both times, at least at the beggining, before taking care of him and doing his best to keep him comfortable.

This time was different.

Shiro feels responsible for the other four Paladins, even for Allura and Coran. As the leader of Voltron, he makes it his job to make sure everything and everyone is okay. That’s bound to bring up some unwanted stress, and Keith knows that’s probably part of the reason why Shiro blew up like that.

But seeing the disappointment in his face is what breaks Keith. His disappointment is somehow much worse than anger. Shiro seemed genuinely sad before leaving. And Keith knows whose fault it is.

Keith takes a deep breath and keeps limping through the halls, swallowing the tears that threaten to escape.

* * *

Lance is nice enough to help Keith out of his training pants and sweaty tshirt. He grabs two extra pillows from the closet and sets Keith’s broken leg on top of them, before gently covering Keith with the blanket.

Keith stays silent, a little curled up on himself, facing the wall, away from Lance.

The sedatives are wearing off fast, and especially with the added weight of the cast, the pain is coming back. It hurts when Lance lifts up his leg on top of the pillows, spreading from his knee downwards, through his broken tibia and fibula. He can tell he’ll have a rough night.

“You’re all set,” Lance finally says, looking around, in case there was something he might be forgetting to help Keith with. He observes the human lump under the covers, and feels his heart clench on himself.

It’s pretty obvious Keith is upset about what Shiro said - that he feels guilty for disappointing Shiro, and that Shiro’s words are still ringing in his head.

Lance sighs, sits at the edge of the bed, mindful of Keith’s leg, and starts rubbing his back gently, trying to think of something to say.

“Want me to sign your cast?”

Keith chuckles, humorlessly, and flinches away from his touch.

“I’m not in the mood, Lance” he mumbles, “I just wanna sleep.”

There’s no real bite in his words. He just sounds exhausted and sad, his voice cracking a little in the end. It breaks Lance’s heart.

And then he sniffles.

“Keith-”

Keith covers his face with his hands and curls up tighter on himself. When Lance manages to uncover Keith’s face and turn his face to him, he sees that his eyes are red rimmed and watery.

“Oh Keith…”

Lance pulls him into a hug, careful but awkward, with both of them lying down and Lance hanging off the bed. Keith buries his face in Lances neck, and lets the tears fall.   
  
They stay in silence for a while. Keith still trembles with each sob, and Lance keeps rubbing his back.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” he whispers, “just let it out, buddy.”

When Keith pulls away and wipes some stray tears of his cheeks, he just looks down. Lance kneels on the floor next to him.

“So,” he says, “you wanna talk about it?”

Keith doesn’t answer, and keeps looking away from Lance.

“Can I be honest with you?” Lance asks, and makes Keith finally look at him, “I know you’re upset because of Shiro’s reaction, and I know he was pretty rough on you. But,” he adds, “he is kinda right, and you know it. I told you it was dangerous to jump from up there.”

Keith closes his eyes, and sighs. It’s still hard hearing it from Lance, even if his voice is softer than Shiro’s and his hand strokes his shoulder comfortingly.

But he’s right. And Shiro is too.

“I know. The damage is done though.”

“It is,” Lance says, “but the cryopods should be back up and running in a week, and I doubt anyone wants you suffering with that cast any longer than necessary.”

Keith manages a small smile.

“And also,” Lance continues, “I know it sucked to hear that, but Shiro only blew up like that because he worries. I’m sure of that.”

Keith nods. “Thanks, Lance.”

“Ah, no problem. I should let you sleep now, though. Goodnight,” Lance says as he gets up, “call of you need anything.”

Keith falls asleep with the weight in his chest a little lighter.

And it all feels a little better when he lays on the sofa at the lounge, the next morning, leg propped up in Shiro’s lap, and Lance and Pidge doodling in his cast. Shiro draws over his foot, with a purple marker, hesitant lines of an angry cat face with a speech bubble next to it.

“ _don’t be reckless!!_ ”

But when Shiro looks over at him, his smile is affectionate, and Keith thinks that even if his cast ends up full of Lance’s weird stick figures and Hunk’s sketches of cakes, maybe this isn’t so bad.


End file.
